Anger Over Removal of Flags at Middlebury

Submitted by Scott Jaschik on September 13, 2013 - 3:00am

At Middlebury College, as at many colleges and universities, students place 3,000 small American flags on the grounds to mark the anniversary of the terrorist attacks that killed so many people on 9/11. This year, five people, one of whom is a Middlebury student, removed some of the flags, angering many other students, The Addison Eagle[1] reported. Those who removed the flags said that they were protesting "America's imperialism." And the student who was in the group said that the flags had been placed on land that was once a Native American burial ground.

A statement from the student added: “My intention was not to cause pain, but to visibilize the necessity of honoring all human life and to help a friend heal from the violence of genocide that she carries with her on a daily basis as an indigenous person. While the American flags on the Middlebury hillside symbolize to some the loss of innocent lives in New York, to others they represent centuries of bloody conquest and mass murder. Three thousand flags is a lot, but the campus is not big enough to hold a marker for every life sacrificed in the history of American conquest and colonialism."